This invention relates generally to bird feeders, and more particularly to hummingbird feeders with illumination features.
Commercially available hummingbird feeders have been offered for sale since the late 1940's or early 1950's, although the suggestion of using glass bottles for feeding hummingbirds dates back to the 1920's. Once such early feeder included a single-piece glass-blown body that housed a sugar solution and operated under vacuum to deliver the solution on demand to the hummingbird. Since then, hummingbird feeders have been offered in a wide variety of shapes, styles and sizes.
More recently, hummingbird feeders have been introduced with electrical lighting features to illuminate the contents of the feeder and/or serve as a hanging lantern during nighttime hours. Such feeders typically include an electrical assembly having a solar panel, a rechargeable battery connected to the solar panel, and a plurality of LED's connected to the battery. A photosensor may also be provided to detect dark and daylight conditions to turn on and off the LED's, respectively. Although such devices may be suitable for their intended purposes, the number of additional parts with their associated accumulative costs and relatively lengthy assembly processes over traditional hummingbird feeders contribute to drive up the final product price tag. In an economically challenged climate with increasingly frugal consumers, the price tag of such devices may be above the budget of many bird lovers.
Accordingly, it would be desirous to provide illuminated hummingbird feeders that do not rely on the more costly electrical assemblies of the prior art.